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Elizabeth Weintraub Wins #2 at Lyon Real Estate Awards 2018
Elizabeth Weintraub wins #2 at Lyon Real Estate Awards: Amy McMullan, Elizabeth Weintraub, Josh Amolsch, Dan Tharp, Shaundra Bradley and . . . Barbara Dow.
Seems once I made it into the top 1% at Lyon Real Estate, I end up ranking every year either as #2 or #3 in the company. We have about 1,000 agents at Lyon, so it’s not an insignificant accomplishment to make into the top 1% at the Lyon Real Estate Awards. Only nine agents achieve that milestone every year. Although, we used to win better prizes. Over the last 5 years or so, we just get a huge honkin’ vase, and now I have too many of those.
Honestly, I have too many awards, period. What do you do with them? I suppose they could be used as flower vases, but I don’t know if you’d want your name on them. I spotted a few awards our relocation department won, and those were pretty cool. From where we sat, they resembled figurines with a globe on top. Like a Golden Globe. You could use them to clobber an intruder.
Thankfully, Friday night, my entire team showed up for the Lyon Real Estate Awards. Usually somebody is out of town, but we were all present. I had been thinking about them as I pulled my beaded earrings from Mallorca and a tie-dyed poncho out of the closet. Hmmm . . . disco night. Well, originally I had received an email about the Awards being a 1970’s theme. I didn’t pay much attention to the flyer. Then, our marketing department sent an email to say the event was Studio 54, to come dressed ready to disco.
Well, having lived through the 1970s, I whipped off an email to our marketing department explaining that only a few years were disco years and the rest of the 1970s was definitely not disco. Therefore, since I had nothing to wear, my team and I were coming as vampires.
Our managing broker had to assure the marketing department I was just messing with them.
The good thing about the evening was I had completely forgotten how to do The Hustle. I recall taking lessons, but the rest of that is a blur in my rear view mirror.
Back to getting dressed in my tie-dyed poncho . . . What I realized when dressing for this event was every year I get up on stage by myself. But every year my team grows stronger, like AlphaBears. We operate as a finely tuned machine. They should get recognition, too. I did not get there all by myself. So, this year I dragged them all up on stage with me. I’d like to introduce you to my amazing team of truly incredible individuals.
Elizabeth Weintraub Team at Lyon Agent Awards 2018 Won #2.
Clockwise from the top, Exclusive Buyer’s Agent Josh Amolsch; Transaction Coordinator Shaundra Bradley; Mortgage Loan Officer at Guild Mortgage Dan Tharp; Exclusive Buyer’s Agent Barbara Dow; Listing Agent and Team Lead Elizabeth Weintraub; Exclusive Buyer’s Agent Amy McMullan.
Nobody is an island and nobody gets where she is in Sacramento real estate without the support of others. In my situation, I rely heavily on my team for support. We have each other’s backs. We pitch in when needed. And I could not possibly provide the type of superior service I strive to achieve for my clients nor handle the volume of listings that I sell if I focused on buyers. My TC Shaundra is like my right-hand person. Our loan guy Dan Tharp is brilliant and treats every client like they are the only client he has.
We share the same values and principles. And above all, we always put our client’s interests first. Over our own. That’s our secret for success. I am incredibly honored and proud to share the stage with my team at the Lyon Real Estate awards for 2018. Can’t say it any louder, I love these guys!
Sacramento Real Estate Team Celebrates Friday at the Riverside Clubhouse
Clockwise, Dan Tharp, Shaundra Bradley, Elizabeth Weintraub, Josh Amolsch, Amy McMullan and Kim Hedges.
Before I left for my Minneapolis trip last week, all of my Team Weintraub members got together for a Friday happy hour at Riverside Clubhouse in Land Park. The only thing I regret from the experience is that Barbara had to leave early and, as a result, was not included in the photographs we later shot. But what a blast for this Sacramento real estate team to meet for a couple of cocktails and dinner on a Friday. We often talk by phone, email and communicate through text, but meeting up with each other is a rare occurrence, to get us all together in one place.
The problem was the engagement was too rich, too full of laughter and sharing with each other that we didn’t think to take a photo earlier. I did that last week in Minneapolis. I was sitting in a bakery cafe at Bachman’s on Lyndale, visiting with Gary Lee Joyner, an old friend, extremely talented musician / artist. We had hitchhiked to Washington D.C. together in 1969, along with my girlfriend from Wayzata, to march against the war in Vietnam. I thought to shoot a picture of the Christmas decorations in the lobby of Bachman’s, but I never got a photo of the two of us, much less of him, even though it had momentarily crossed my mind. I was too focused on the conversation. The moment at hand.
Your work family is like family when you’re in Sacramento real estate. We all support each other and I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I can go anywhere in the world and my Sacramento real estate team members will take care of business, and vice versa. We are not Paul Simon; we are not an island. We’re a group of veteran professionals committed to the core philosophy that our clients are the focus. We don’t want simply “satisfied” clients, we want our clients to be ecstatic and to find comfort in the fact that we will always go that extra mile for them.
Our Sacramento real estate team work does not fall through the cracks. We rarely make a mistake, probably because we’ve made so many decades ago as we learned the Sacramento real estate business, and we learn from our own mistakes. We don’t want to repeat a mistake twice because that’s idiotic.
I hand-picked the members of my team because they show the same work ethic and dedication to excellence that I see in myself. We are similar stock, although we come from all walks of life and bridge generations. If you are hoping to buy or sell a home in the four-county area of Sacramento, please call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. You’ll get a Sacramento real estate team to support your transaction, along with a top ranking Sacramento Realtor.
How the New Mortgage Rules Affect Sacramento Home Buyers
At first blush, it was reasonable to figure that the QM (Qualified Mortgage) and ATR (Ability to Repay) new mortgage rules put into place on January 10th by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau probably would not affect very many borrowers. That’s because lenders had already tightened their guidelines. But some of the new rules are difficult for some borrowers to meet, such as the 43% back-end debt ratio.
For those of you not in the real estate business, a back-end debt ratio is calculated by taking all of your revolving monthly debt, including your mortgage payment, taxes and insurance, and dividing that number by your gross monthly income. For example, if you earn $5,000 a month and all your debt payments plus mortgage obligation adds up to $2,200 per month, you most likely will not qualify to buy a home under the new mortgage rules because your back-end ratio is 44%.
I am a REALTOR in Sacramento, not a mortgage broker, so I won’t go into all the sticky details about how a borrower is qualified for a mortgage because that’s the job of people like Dan Tharp at Guild Mortgage. You can reach Dan at 916 257 1470. He’s a very patient person who will spend all the time it takes to explain mortgage options to you and help a borrower to pick the best loan. He also obtains great rates from major lenders (probably better than you can get directly), so if there’s a bank you particularly want to get a loan through, he’s your guy.
I can tell you that mortgage lenders are definitely more thorough lately. Just the other day, we had a lender run a nationwide check on a borrower. This was not my borrower but the seller is my client. Also, this would not have happened in the old days. This lender looked for lawsuits or any other kind of derogatory item filed against the borrower and sure enough, it found a lawsuit filed in Missouri.
The Social Security numbers matched, even though the borrower denied that he was one and the same person. After a bit, he finally backed down and admitted that the lawsuit was his. And you know what? He did not get the loan.
Waiting Periods Are Over for Buying After a Short Sale
You might be able to immediately buy a home right after closing a short sale
Having personally helped hundreds of sellers in distress close Sacramento short sales — to the tune of more than $65 million since 2006 — and put the entire horrid nightmare behind them, I often hear first-hand a seller swear she will never buy another home ever again. I caution with a grin, “Oh, I wouldn’t be so certain about that if I were you.” Those are often famous last words. If that were true and we all had long memories, women would never get pregnant a second time.
Believe it or not, there is joy and pain in a short sale. Over time, the pain and frustration from the short sale dissipates. Not only that, but the minute a short sale closes escrow, there is a huge sense of relief that suddenly appears out of nowhere. It’s almost as though the clouds stopped raining and tulips instantly bloomed in technicolor. You can hear angels sing. At least that’s what my sellers tell me.
Today, many short sale sellers are returning to buy a home after closing short sales. How soon can you buy after a short sale? The good news is if you have 25% to put down, you can buy immediately. Further, if you have completed a HAFA short sale without a Notice of Default nor late payments from the summer of 2013 forward — and if the lender reported your short payoff correctly as PAID IN FULL — you should be able to buy immediately under any financing program, including FHA with minimum down.
But FHA also has implemented its own Back to Work program for sellers who have “Paid in Full for Less Than Agreed” reported on their credit reports and who experienced an economic event, which allows a repurchase within one year. That’s pretty incredible as compared to the lengthy waiting times from the past. It used to be 7 years, then 5, then 3 years, (2 under Fannie Mae).
See, with time, lenders finally come around. I suspect they had to eventually because short sale sellers are not like foreclosure recipients. Short sale sellers are responsible people who struggled to do the right thing. They have a conscience, generally, and do unto others as they would have them do unto them. That’s a special breed. And these people deserve a second chance. I’m thrilled to see home loans available for them, without a big scarlet S hanging around their necks.
If you would like more information about buying again after a short sale, call Dan Tharp at Guild Mortgage, 916.257.1470 or email him at dtharp@comstockmortgage.com. Then, call this Sacramento real estate agent, and we’ll get you started on looking at homes to buy: Elizabeth Weintraub, 916.233.6759.
